Turn rate's something to get used to. Also, we have inter-tree juking instead of tall grass. Roshan (the big guy that chills in his cave) gives an auto-res item that expires after 6 minutes. You're also really gonna want to know your stuff before playing in pubs, there's a high skill floor (debatable).

Oh, also, barracks (inhibitors) don't respawn. That's a big one. Passive gold is miniscule in comparison as well. There's also comparatively less spamming, most skills have really long cooldowns in comparison to League skills.

First off, do not try to think of things in Dota in LoL terms. Yes, they are games in the same genre. But that is where the similarities end. Your best bet is to try to go into the game with as open a mind as possible. Some stuff will translate to LoL, but the two games are completely different animals.

Second, the sidebar has a ton of great resources. Just click on the "new to dota 2? start here" button. Purge's "welcome to dota, you suck" is pretty much THE dota 2 guide. In addition, you might find this big megapost (3 posts long, text limits) I made at the top of this thread a few months ago. It covers key differences between games (including lanes, roles, etc), tutorial videos, written guides, newbie hero recommendations (sorted by role), and an item breakdown.

AP does not exist in dota. There are some "Caster" carries, though. To explain:

Items are quite different from LoL. There is no stat like AP in DOTA. There do exist some extremely powerful late-game spellcasters like Invoker, Leshrac and Necrolyte, but their spells don't actually need additional damage to still pack quite the punch throughout the game. Leshrac for example typically stacks defensive items so that he can spam his spells, turn on his ult and mow down the entire enemy team in seconds.

More importantly, items in DOTA are far more dynamic than most items in LoL, and many of the most powerful items in the game's strength comes not from stats, but the ability to give your hero another dimension to their play. Stuff like Force Staff, Blink Dagger, Scythe of Vyse, Necronomicon and Pipe are prime examples.

As for last hitting, it's pretty different in DOTA. Creeps are a lot tougher, and enemies can deny them on low hp by attacking them themselves. Spells are less spammable in dota as well, so all this translates to a laning stage where you are constantly fighting your opponents for farm, and a lot of your potential creep kills are going to be contested. A "perfect creepscore" is extremely rare, even at the highest pro level.

You're also going to want to know about turn rates and cast animations. Heroes in dota have varying speeds they can turn around, and some have varying animation times before they actually start casting a spell. This is all part of balance. The fact that a ranged hero has to spend time turning around makes kiting much harder, and helps make melee carries more viable. Turn rates/cast animations are also an integral part of many heroes design. To repeat something I've said in another thread:

There are actually characters that have abilities that are related to turn rates/animation. For example, Batrider's sticky napalm can MASSIVELY slow turn rates, move speed, and increase damage he does to a target(s). He's one of the most picked and banned heroes in competitive games, and this is a huge part of it.

Another hero that plays on these mechanics is Rubick His ult allows him to temporarily copy, store, and use enemy spells. However, he has a near-instant spellcasting animation. That means if he steals spells from a hero who intentionally have longer cast times on their spells for balance reasons, his version of the spell will be even stronger. For example, if he stole leshrac's split earth, he would use his 0.1 second cast time, as opposed to leshrac's 0.7. That means he's throwing an instant-cast, AOE stun on a 9-second cooldown around, and that can be a pretty big deal.

The cast animations on spells can be a good thing, too. Just like you can cancel an attack mid-swing to try to last hit, you can cancel a spell if you're fast enough. That allows you to "fake" a big spell to bait out a response, and then throw the real thing out later (since spell canceled during its original cast animation, before the ability goes off, won't cost mana or put the ability on cooldown). You can see what I'm talking about here. It's pretty cool, and creates opportunities for some pretty tricky mind games.

And some hero recommendations. It sounds like you're more interested in a farming role, but be aware that there's great heroes to get a hang of the game with in every role. And this list is not a be-all end-all. If you see a hero that really catches your eye not on this list, go for it. Any hero is viable in a pub game, and over 80 of the 96 heroes who were in captain's mode at the time of the event were picked at TI3, the highest-level pro competition in dota. So trust me, you do not have to worry about avoiding heroes that are just outright "bad". Those don't really exist in this game.

Anyway, onto the newbie-friendly hero list:

That cover it, or do you have some more questions? Happy to clarify anything I said if it came off as a bit confusing, too.

There's not many other than that. We can include spells with <5 seconds as spammy ones, so Undying and Death Prophet are good spammers. That's about what cooldowns are in league- majority between 5-10 second cooldowns.

I have compared League's combat to WoW in the past, where you use abilities frequently, and they aren't very impactful.

That is exactly how I felt playing League for the first time. I have about five matches - maybe five hours or so - under my belt and the abilities feel so... lame. Half of the time, I can't even tell when I cast an ability because it either blends in with the background or isn't impactful at all. In Dota, the screen shakes, the effects are super colorful and everyone knows exactly where and when an ability was launched.

Ability power. Skills scale with ability power (and AD--attack damage) in LoL. The closest comparison is Skywrath's first skill or Silencer's glaive. But almost every single skill scales off one, the other, or both. There's a case to be made that it helps mages stay relevant for longer but there's also a case to be made that it shifts the point of items for mages/int heroes from gaining new skills to stay relevant to upgrading their current skills which is kinda boring. It also means, indirectly, that physical casters (assassins namely) are much stronger.

Click on the "New to Dota 2? Start here." button on the right side of the subreddit

but generally, i've heard my friends who played LoL say that last hitting in Dota is much harder... and at the same time you also worry about denying your own creeps(minions).. but yea.. check out the "new to dota 2" thing

the equivalent to ad and ap would be the three basic stats, strength, agility, and intelligence. each stat gives different benefits i.e strength gives hp per point agility ms and as and int mana per point. your damage scales like such depending on your heroes main stat. lasthitting in dota is the same but a lot harder, your base damage in the beginning is generally extremely low and you also are contested quite often by denies as i'm sure you've heard. and also i guess there's a lot more harassing and mindgaming when last hitting, you can't just expect to get all 4 last hits everytime unlike LoL where it's pretty hard not to get all 6-7 minions per wave